Tennis News

After a surprisingly flat conclusion to his quest for yet another Madrid Masters 1000 title, Rafael Nadal will look to salvage his clay court warm-up period with a solid showing at the Rome Masters event – the final buildup ahead of Roland Garros. The Spaniard will begin his campaign against Marsel Ilhan, whom he has never faced previously on the professional tour.

In one of the more surprising finals in recent memory, Andy Murray defeated Rafael Nadal in straight sets to lift the Mutua Madrid Open title on Sunday. It was Murray’s second win at this event but his first since the tournament moved to clay. Nadal, who commit far too many unforced errors for comfort, dropped to 8-3 on clay this season and has also dropped outside of the Top 5 for the first time since 2005.

While he is now ranked No. 7 on the tour, Nadal is confident that he will work his way back up and could still be a significant force at this year’s French Open.

“I’ve played a couple good matches [this week], especially yesterday’s match,” said Nadal. “It’s one of the best matches I have played in a long time. So I cannot leave Madrid not happy. I have leave happy and just delete what happened today. I will just stay with the good things that happened this week, and there are a lot of them, more good than bad. I will try to recover in Rome the feelings. I think I’ve made a step forward and I’m playing better. My game is better.”

Turkish qualifier Marsel Ilhan followed up on his wins against Gianluca Mager and Daniel Gimeno-Traver in the qualifying stage with a straight sets victory against Adrian Mannarino in the opening round of the main draw. He beat the Frenchman 6-4, 6-1 in a match that saw him strike three aces and save all six of the break points he faced during the match.

This is scheduled to be the first time that Nadal and Ilhan cross paths on the professional tour. While opportunities like this are where youngsters play as though they have nothing to lose, it will likely be Nadal who puts his best foot forward in an attempt to mitigate the desperation he is approaching.

Eugenie Bouchard will look to trek on in her turbulent 2015 season when she begins her campaign in Rome. The 21-year-old will begin her quest in Italy against a fellow 21-year-old in Zarina Diyas. The two have never faced each other in professional competition, which adds to the intrigue of this coming encounter.

In Madrid, the Canadian darling was part of a bizarre trend of seeds falling in the early stages of the tournament. Bouchard continued her disappointing trend with yet another first round loss, this time to Barbora Strycova. The Canadian was up 6-0 but still lost the match in baffling fashion, 0-6, 6-3, 6-3 to Strycova.

She moved to 6-8 on the professional tour this season and is yet to emerge as a legitimate threat at any event this season.

That was not the only disturbing trend emerging from the Bouchard camp, as she was also a part of some controversy at the Fed Cup, where she refused to shake her opponent’s hand and went on to lose the match the following day.

“It’s nothing personal towards her, I just don’t believe in wishing my opponent good luck before the match,” Bouchard told Romanian media. “After we play [Saturday] I will shake her hand, no matter what happens.”

The Canadian will attempt to revere her fortunes when she comes up against Kazakhstan’s Zarina Diyas. She defeated Tsvetana Pironkova in straight sets, 7-5, 6- to advance to her first meeting against Bouchard. She won 57% of her first service points and saved 7/10 break points to close out the match in one hour and 26 minutes.

This is the first time that these two competitors will cross paths on the professional tour and could make for an interesting contest. Given that Bouchard is far from her best at the moment, it would not be surprising to see her give away another lead in the match and lose in bizarre fashion.

A first-time meeting between Simona Halep and Alison Riske is scheduled to take place on Wednesday afternoon in Rome. Halep, who is coming off a disappointing week in Madrid, will look to rebound successfully in her final warm-up event ahead of the French Open.

Following an excellent start to her 2015 season, which included title wins in Dubai and Indian Wells, and most recently reached the semi-final stage in Miami, Simona Halep was dealt a significant blow on Sunday when she was ousted from the Madrid Open in her opening round match.

Faced with the inconsistent game of French No. 1 Alize Cornet, many assumed that Halep would be victorious en route to the second round of the tournament. However, the Romanian played an off-colour match and eventually surrendered the contest and allowed Cornet to close out the affair 7-6(6), 6-3.

“I learned many things from this match, like that I have to be relaxed when I’m defending big points. So I will forget this tournament – the tournament is lost. I have nothing to do but to look ahead now.”

“I had some problems last week in Madrid, but I’m feeling happy with my game again now,” she said. “I am hoping to have some more matches on clay – I still need some matches to reach my highest level. I’ll need to fight this week, because right now I’m a little bit far away from where I want to be.

Halep will begin her campaign against USA’s Alison Riske. The American reached the second round of the tournament with a straight sets win against Varvara Lepchenko. She won 74% of her first service points, saved three break points and converted four others to secure the 6-4, 6-3 win in one hour and 32 minutes.

This is just the first time that Halep and Riske cross paths on the professional circuit. Although this could serve as another surprising upset, Halep will likely be wary of her previous mistakes and will work on keeping her anxiety at bay while on court.

Following a less-than-stellar week in Madrid, 17-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer will look to reverse his recent misfortunes and complete his French Open warm-up in successful fashion. He will begin his 2015 Rome Masters 1000 event campaign against Pablo Cuevas, whom he met in the final of the Istanbul final just two weeks ago. This is just the second time that these two competitors will meet on the professional tour, with Federer leading the head-to-head series 1-0.

Just days after he won his 85th title on the tour, the former four-time champion in Madrid suffered a tight three-set loss to rising Aussie star Nick Kyrgios. In what turned out to be an enthralling encounter on the tour, Kyrgios was able to save several match points to eventually snatch the deciding points in the third set tiebreak. He won the contest 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 7-6(12).

Although Federer was far from his worst, he admitted that he was simply unable to return Nick’s monster first serves.

“My problem was I couldn’t return his first serve,” said Federer, who won 18 of 85 first serve return points. [It] was just a horrible performance on the return. “As the match went on it got so bad that I just couldn’t get into decent positions on the return, so it made it very difficult to get any sort of rhythm after that.”

Federer will next come up against Pablo Cuevas, who secured his spot in the second round of the tournament with a straight sets win against Paolo Lorenzi. He struck five aces, won 81% of his first service points and faced no break points en route to the 6-3, 6-2 win in one hour and 17 minutes.

This is the second t time that these two competitors will meet on the professional tour, yet it is still one that will likely favour the vastly more experienced Federer. He was able to deny Cuevas a fourth ATP World Tour title by handing him his first defeat in a tournament final and will be keen to add to that en route to the third round in Rome.